Crafting, traveling and everything in between.

Tag Archives: Cincinnati

We recently made a quick jaunt to Cincy to visit family. We checked out Findley Market in Over the Rhine on our last day. Love it! If we were to ever move to Cincy, I’d want to live close enough to the market to make weekly visits.

You can buy all kinds of fresh meats, including sausages, ribs, fish and chicken, and other goodies. I loved all the different kinds of bakeries. If we weren’t leaving later that day I would have bought a loaf of bread and chocolate-covered baklava (something Chris really wanted) for dinner.

We did buy grub for lunch at one of the many delis. Chris’ aunt and I split a veggie moussaka, beans with leeks and dolmades (stuffed grape leaves), and the guys ate the biggest gyros I’d ever seen. I tasted a piece of Chris’ lamb. Delicious!

I’m going to begin this year with a sampling of photos from our final vacation/trip last year that I never got to. We didn’t do much in the fall for various reasons, but we vow to do much better this coming year as time allows.

Some of the beautiful flowers and greenery we saw at the International Friendship Park.

After walking several miles across the bridge and through Riverfront and International Friendship Parks, we finally reached the end. We sat down and rested near this sculpture lated at the end of the International Friendship Park before trudging back to our car.

We’ve visited the Krohn Conservatory before and it’s a great place to go, especially if it’s not too pleasant outside for outdoor activities. The beautiful Art Deco Krohn building houses exotic and gorgeous plants. Besides my favorite Orchid House, there are rooms dedicated to palms, tropical and desert plants.

For this visit we were there to visit the Butterflies of Brazil exhibit. Each spring, the Krohn features butterflies for a few months. It was really cool walking among hundreds of fluttering butterflies.

One butterfly landed on Chris’ arm as soon as we walked into the room.

Lots of kiddies had flat foam pieces they used to soak up water from the room’s fountain. They used the soaked foam to attract butterflies.

This girl was a pro! She had more than one butterfly on her foam at any given time.

She even had one of the larger butterflies hanging out on her arm.

Our visit would have been more enjoyable, however, if some parents controlled their kids better. There were a few boys running in between peoples’ legs, leaning across and shoving people out of the way in attempts to capture butterflies. One boy constantly invaded my personal space … even though I was sitting down! He also nearly stepped on many of the butterflies.

Though it was really cool and somewhat fun, my face hurt a lot from clenching my jaws and I had a pounding headache. I left wishing we’d learned about the adults only Happy Hour scheduled for later that day. Though we’d already had dinner plans, I would have loved watching the butterflies while listening to jazz.

It’s too bad that a few bad apples ruined the whole bunch. Just to be clear, most of the kids were well-behaved.

Though the room felt like chaos, Chris was able to get some great shots. Here’s some more:

Krohn Conservatory is an excellent place to stop if you’re ever in or near Cincinnati.

While in Cincinnati we stayed in Sharonville. In Cincy, there are several towns/cities that make up sections of the city. Those towns are complete with mayors and councils. So it’s like a town/city within a larger city.

I’m interested in learning more about how that works. It’s a little confusing to me as I grew up in N.C. and am mostly familiar with cities and towns situated within counties and paying both city/town and county taxes. Does that mean Sharonville residents pay Sharonville, Cincinnati and county taxes?

In Va., if a place is called a “city” it doesn’t reside within a county but is an entity all to itself and only pays city taxes. Towns still pay town and county taxes. That was something I had to get used to when I moved to the state a few years ago.

Anyway, since we were in Sharonville we visited Sharon Woods, a local park. When we arrived (early in the morning) there was a small group of people practicing what looked like Tai Chi on one of the bridges that crosses the creek. It would be a great place to do yoga or other group activity. It’s so peaceful!

Creek near the parking lots and bridges. (All photos by E.A. Seagraves/Christopher Brooke. Do not use without permission.)

We walked up to the marina and around a paved trail that circles a small lake. Lots of people were jogging, riding bikes and walking their dogs.

Here’s a view of the marina from across the lake.

At the marina is a playground and snack bar. There’s also a fitness trail, golf course and something called Heritage Park. Heritage Park was closed when we were there and we didn’t wait to go in. It presents a view of 19th century living.

I would love to live near this area. It was such a nice community and very pretty.

One of my favorite stops on our trip to Ohio was the Cincinnati Zoo. Nothing compares to the North Carolina Zoo with it’s large, open spaces and natural habitats, but I still enjoy checking out new zoos to see different animals and zoo philosophies.

My favorites at the zoo included the lemurs and red pandas. I once wanted to be a zoologist and study lemurs on Madagascar . . . or the Duke Primate Center, either one. And I remembered reading about red pandas when I was a girl. They’re related to the giant panda, though they look a lot like raccoons. Aren’t they cute? They’re nocturnal so are mostly active at dusk.

Sleepy red panda (All photos by Christopher Brooke. Please do not use without permission.)

Chris remembers feeding the elephants when he was a boy. It doesn’t look like you’re able to feed them now.

But you can feed giraffes.

I think this was the first time I’ve ever seen orangutans in person. So that was a treat. They’re larger than I expected. This one was sleeping.

A zoo keeper had this fella (or gal) out and talked with kids about barn owls.

There were also lots of colorful birds, including these parrots. I need to tell my mom about the lorikeets and the areas where you can feed them. She, as a Quaker parrot and parakeet owner, would have loved that. I’m scared of them, so I didn’t get too close.

I’ve eaten a lot of it already. Here’s my third kimchi quesadilla. It makes a great, light lunch.

I truly recommend trying out the recipe if you have any cabbage you need to cook up.

Unrelated news:

I’m just about finished with the Tanglewood Pullover sweater I’ve been working on forever. According to Ravelry, I’ve started the project Feb. 27. But I haven’t been knitting since then. I put the needles down for a couple of months.

My sweater is going to be all green. I can’t wait to wear it this fall!

All that’s left to finish is the second sleeve, stitching everything together and knitting up the collar.

While in Cincinnati a couple weekends ago, Chris and I stopped at a yarn store suggested by Chris’ aunt — One More Stitch.

I wanted to pick up a size 5 circular knitting needle for the sweater’s collar and I didn’t have one in my knitting supplies.

This store is HUGE and is filled with a lot of beautiful yarn and needles. If you happen to be out that way, stop by and check them out.____________________________________________________________The Tanglewood Pullover is found in this book:

In a day or two we’re heading out to Cincinnati, Ohio, for Chris’ aunt and uncle’s 50th wedding anniversary.

Instead of taking I-77 to I-64 to I-75, Chris said we’re going to take a different route this time. He wants to take I-77 to Ohio 32 or U.S. 35. I can’t remember which.

I also think it would be neat to take U.S. 52 all the way to Cincy.

Chris wants to stop in a couple of places on our way to the big city. He asked me to pick some locations I’d be interested in. He’s selected Gallipolis, Ohio, which is on the Ohio/West Virginia border.

Got any quick suggestions?_________________________________________________________Ha! I wondered if Amazon would pull up maps. And it did. 🙂